Monday, October 20, 2008

Friday, October 17, 2008

To the delight of Plath and Hughes scholars and enthusiasts, a few days ago a large number of Hughes' papers were acquired by the British Library. Peter Steinberg, who runs the Sylvia Plath Info blog, has an excellent post here on why having access to these papers is not just a form of voyeurism, though no doubt it will be to some, but of real interest and value to academics and fans of the work of the greatest literary couple of the twentieth century.

Monday, October 13, 2008

It's not been a good few days, I've been stuffed up with the cold though getting over it now, just suffering from earache which is hellish at night and, for the first time, I've genuinely lost my purse. Know anyone else daft enough to carry around in their purse a bankcard, credit card, husband's bankcard, council tax card and national insurance card? Though perhaps I needn't be so worried about the bankcards (I'm with HBOS).

Which brings me to the financial crisis, where does poetry fit into all this? I've a feeling my writing ought to reflect the zeitgeist of the age but I'm just not inspired to write about the world's impending financial collapse. Is this not what gives poetry a bad name - its apparent pointlessness. Certainly a lot of writers do respond to climatic events. I've been thinking about how I can respond, maybe it just has to be in a less direct way.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Yippee! I've had my poem 'Mother Nature House Hunting' accepted for publication by the webzine Nthposition run by Canadian poet Todd Swift. It'll be in the February '09 issue. This is a great webzine, I'm really happy they've accepted one of my poems.

Other than this there's not much news, we're all loaded with the cold here. I'm currently reading Eleanor Rees' poetry collection Andraste's Hair. I knew after reading one of her poems on-line that I would love the collection. It a beautiful hardback from Salt Publishing and the poems are electric, I'll say more about it later.